


Dream of You

by chicago_ruth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Inception AU, M/M, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicago_ruth/pseuds/chicago_ruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin haunts Arthur, through every dream Arthur enters. And the guilt eats at Arthur, so much that he spends every day hoping he's still dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream of You

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man. I started writing this, and realized that it was a holiday present, and then I started doubting myself. This fic isn't fluff, eyesofapanda, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. <3

Arthur played with his mother's ring. It weighed the right amount, and it slid onto his pinky with just the right leeway. 

So this was reality. It really was snowing outside, and Gwen really had come over to bake cookies. Arthur sighed, pushed the ring down as far as it would go, and forced himself to pay attention. 

Gwen was saying they might have a new job soon, she just needed to find a forger for them, and the conversation seemed like such a strange juxtaposition to her overly domestic baking.

He thought he saw a mop of dark hair outside, out of the corner of his eye, but it was just a tree branch.

\--

"Look, I made it snow!" Merlin’s face was flushed with delight, and Arthur leaned in to kiss him, simply because he could. This world they were in, it was theirs, and nobody could keep them apart.

The snow kept falling down around them, landing on their hair and cheeks, each flake proof of Merlin's magic.

"Tomorrow, I want to see the fall leaves," Arthur whispered once he pulled away. For a brief second, Merlin seemed to frown, but it was gone with a bright laugh.

"Anything for you, your majesty."

The sarcasm was hardly necessary, but Arthur took it as an excuse to push Merlin into the snow., Soon they were wrestling and throwing snowballs; lying together and letting their breaths mingle.

\--

Arthur hated taking jobs sometimes. There was always so much planning to do, so many small details that had to be considered or else risk falling into the dream world endlessly. The entire team depended on his strategy to see them through. It was a crushing responsibility that he wasn't always sure he wanted.

He didn't trust anybody else to do it.

So he met with Lance, who could mimic shapes perfectly, and he met with Gwaine, who could concoct all types of drugs. Morgana offered to be the architect, and while Arthur couldn't always tell when she was lying or not, there was no denying that she was the best.

The only snag was--

"Inception is just a myth," Gwaine argued, though he was more than happy to take the money their client was offering. 

It took Arthur a long time to respond, and even so the words came out quietly, like just speaking them would make everything happen all over again. "Inception is real."

Gwen and Morgana both looked on the verge of saying something, but Arthur needed to get the story out before rumors got out of hand. "My former partner--he and I, we theorized about it. And I've seen it first hand. We went deeper and deeper into dream layers, until we were so far gone we had a hard time remembering what was real."

It still hurt to think about it; Arthur clenched his mother's ring and wished it felt wrong, instead of being so heavy.

"If it hadn't been for an Inception, we might have gotten stuck there," Arthur finished. That was the truth, and he didn't think that any of them needed to know more.

\--

"Arthur, we need to go back to the real world." Merlin ran his hands through Arthur's hair, and though his words were serious, his tone was so soft that it was easy enough to dismiss them.

"This _is_ the real world."

Merlin's fingers stilled. "No, it isn't. This is all a dream."

Which was ridiculous, because Arthur had just woken up, and here they were, lying in bed together. He could taste his morning breath, and he could smell the mild sweat on Merlin. They were meeting his father for dinner later, and Morgana was going to bring her new girlfriend, and their life was finally going their way.

"This can't be a dream."

But Merlin was shaking his head, looking completely distressed. He climbed out of bed and began putting his clothes on, and when he was done with that he reached into the night stand for something. "Arthur, Arthur, I'm so sorry. I'll get us out of here. But while I'm gone, I dare you to test your totem."

\--

Arthur twisted his mother's ring around his pinky, and again he wished it was looser. This was still reality. His mind kept screaming at him that it wasn't, there was no way this was real, and it was only the weight of his mother's ring that kept him grounded.

"We're going to go three layers in," he told his team. "We have to make our target believe the idea is her own."

It was easy enough to catch Viviane unawares; it was easy enough to drag her one, two layers deep. She smiled at Lance--who wore her father's face--and seemed more than happy to follow them into the elaborately woven labyrinth. 

In the third layer, Merlin was waiting for them. "You know this isn't the real world, right?" he said, looking straight at Arthur. Morgana and Gwen both gasped sharply, and Viviane was wondering loudly who this stranger was, but Arthur, Arthur couldn't help himself.

He took two steps forward. "This _is_ real." He let his mother's ring drop into his pocket, because even though he knew that they were in a dream, this was how the script went. Merlin stayed only as long as Arthur denied reality.

Morgana's nails dug into his shoulders. "Arthur, we don't have time for this."

They didn't have time for--for him to be this distracted; Viviane was right there, watching the entire event with some fascination, and if it went on for too long she'd get far too suspicious and it would have all been for nothing. Arthur shook his head and turned away from Merlin.

"Viviane, the castle is just up this way. We need to hurry." He grabbed Viviane's hand and began running down the path, half-dragging her along, and he talked to her, tried to focus her attention on anything but Merlin.

There was a dragon roar, and then a startling heat creeping up from behind them. Merlin's way of showing Arthur that this wasn't reality, that it was time to stop dreaming. The dragon flames singed Arthur's shirt, but he kept running, kept spouting nonsense at Viviane so she wouldn't look back.

He heard Morgana yelling something, probably trying to change the layout of the dream to foil Merlin's progress, and Arthur had to look forward and not listen to her, not let Merlin know what was coming.

Somehow they did make it, somehow Viviane found that scrap of an idea that she would take with her to the real world, and somehow they were going to escape--

"You killed me," Merlin whispered into his ear.

Arthur let go of Viviane and let Merlin drag him back, further and further into the dream. "I didn't mean to."

"That was real: my blood across the kitchen counter, the bloody knife in your hands. I begged for you to stop, right down to my last breath."

Merlin's arms wrapped around Arthur from behind, and his lips ghosted over the nape of Arthur's neck. The embrace that was so real, exactly like it had been all those years they'd spent together, those years that were never real.

"I'm so sorry." Did it count as crying, inside a dream that wasn't his own? "I didn't think you were real."

\--

Arthur woke up one morning, absolutely convinced that he was in a dream. He tried his mother's ring: it slid perfectly onto his ring finger, far larger and looser than her ring could ever be in real life.

Merlin smiled when Arthur told him they needed to get out, and Merlin held his hand as they made their way through the many layers of their subconscious until they were awake again.

At least, that's what Merlin said. "This is reality."

But Arthur frowned. "No, this is still a dream. I can feel it."

And his mother's ring didn't fit on his ring finger, it was snug on his pinky, but Merlin knew about the totem, right? Merlin could have created this elaborate reality, Merlin was a master architect. Merlin crafted dreams like magic, so they couldn't possibly be in the real world yet.

\--

Morgana shot Merlin.

\--

The knife wound bled and bled and bled, and Arthur kept trying to wake up, kept crying for Merlin to stop the stupid illusion, but the blood was gushing over his hands and no matter how stained he became, it didn't change the fact that they were in the real world and Merlin was dead, dead, dead--

\--

Arthur woke up.

Viviane sat next to him on the airplane, and Lance, Gwaine, and Morgana were just a row in front of him. Everybody was rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and Viviane looked like she had an epiphany or two.

Arthur clutched his mother's ring and slid it onto his pinky, and twisted and twisted and twisted but still it refused to tell him that he was dreaming.

\--

Merlin greeted him when he got home, and Arthur smiled. "I'm so happy to see you," he told Merlin, and Merlin just smiled back at him.

"You know this isn't real," Merlin said, right before pulling Arthur into a kiss.

Arthur dropped his mother's ring, listened to it thud against the hallway carpet, and shrugged. "It could be."


End file.
